How to open a banana? 07-28-2009, 11:03 AM #1Orchidflower
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post

Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 3,323

How to open a banana?
I just found this out, and was amazed how stupid we humans are. Did you know that the primate world opens bananas from the bottom of the banana and not at the stem? Try it. You'll find it's 1,000 times easier. And I'll guess that the vast majority of us still open bananas from the stem, so I guess this means monkeys are smarter than us humans?
__________________

I learned the above one day about six years ago. But, it doesn't work all that well. So, I've decided to no longer open bananas from the bottom. Wish I never learned it.

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Other than humans, dogs are the only animals who know where something is hidden when you point to it. ...or so DW tells me. She said that they demonstrated this on the program she was watching with a chimpanzee versus the dog. A treat was hidden under one of several cups. The human just had to glance towards the correct cup and the dog would flip it over to claim its treat. With the chimp, the human could enthusiastically point to the cup with the treat but the chimp invariably looked under the wrong one.

__________________Retired in Jan, 2010 at 55, moved to England in May 2016Now it's adventure before dementia

Other than humans, dogs are the only animals who know where something is hidden when you point to it. ...or so DW tells me. She said that they demonstrated this on the program she was watching with a chimpanzee versus the dog. A treat was hidden under one of several cups. The human just had to glance towards the correct cup and the dog would flip it over to claim its treat. With the chimp, the human could enthusiastically point to the cup with the treat but the chimp invariably looked under the wrong one.

I think that means that chimps are the only animal smart enough to know that it can't trust humans.

__________________"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." - Will Rogers, or maybe Sam ClemensDW and I - FIREd at 50 (7/06), living off assets

When mice were bred to have eyes but no rods or cones, ie totally blind it was found that they could still detect if it was light or dark, so they asked some totally blind people if they could tell if it was light or dark and they said no. They were then asked to guess and were 100% correct. (dark rooms, light on or off)

Turns out that are some light receptive cells somewhere in the eyes that detect light even though you don't consciously know. This comes from research into circadian rhythms.

__________________Retired in Jan, 2010 at 55, moved to England in May 2016Now it's adventure before dementia

Other than humans, dogs are the only animals who know where something is hidden when you point to it. ...or so DW tells me. She said that they demonstrated this on the program she was watching with a chimpanzee versus the dog. A treat was hidden under one of several cups. The human just had to glance towards the correct cup and the dog would flip it over to claim its treat. With the chimp, the human could enthusiastically point to the cup with the treat but the chimp invariably looked under the wrong one.

__________________
If there's one thing in my life that's missing; It's the time I spend alone
Sailing on the cool and bright clear waters; There's lots of those friendly people
Showin me ways to go; And I never want to lose your inspiration

DW/me were in a basic Chinese writing class last month (our latest trip; three weeks on the Mainland and a few days in HK).

What was most interesting to us is of the thousands of "character sets" in use, they are all made by just eight strokes of the hand. The strokes of Chinese characters fall into eight main categories: horizontal (一), vertical (丨), left-falling (丿), right-falling (丶), rising, dot (、), hook (亅), and turning (乛, 乚, 乙, etc.).

Our guide mentioned that one did not become proficient in the full use of all the characters (about 4000) until after a decade of study, on average.

Compare that with the 26-letter (or stroke) Latin alphabet that we use today.

I'm watching the Packers-Vikings game on "Sunday Night Football." On the opening play, the guy ran a kick-off 109 yards for a touchdown. It matched the NFL record, which had also been set in the same stadium--the Metrodome--in 2007. The earlier play that had set the NFL record was based upon a missed field goal attempt.

What I learned tonight is that if you try to kick a field goal and miss, but the ball remains in play (here, it was about to land in the end-zone and not out of bounds as they usually do), an opposing team member can be in the end-zone, catch the ball, and run it back down the field for a TD. I knew about blocked field goals, etc., that kept the ball in play, but I didn't know a guy could run into the end-zone to catch a missed field goal attempt and then try to run it back down the field.

I don't remember ever seeing an opposing team member going back into the end-zone to try to catch a missed field goal. Why did that happen in this 2007 game? Because, as we know, if you miss a field goal, the other team gets the ball "on downs" from the line of scrimmage. Trying to catch the ball in the end-zone and running it back down the field, only to get tackled most likely, would probably result in a lousier field position than just getting the ball on downs, I would think.

Is that just basic TV? Over and above, like, DirecTV? And how does the Queen collect it? How does she know you have a TV and try to collect if you're just getting stations "over the air"?

It has nothing to with the Queen, it is how public broadcasting is funded in the UK. 2/3rds of European countries and 1/2 of Asia and African countries also use TV licenses to fund public broadcasting.

You buy a TV licence each year just like you buy a licence for each car you own (also known as a road tax), through the appropriate agency that manages it.

__________________Retired in Jan, 2010 at 55, moved to England in May 2016Now it's adventure before dementia

I learned today that if I visit this ER Web site on my local library's computer, links to YouTube videos show as these big images, but on my home PC they are just these smallish green icons with white font. What I didn't learn is how to adjust the settings on my home PC to see those large images.

Other than humans, dogs are the only animals who know where something is hidden when you point to it. ...or so DW tells me. She said that they demonstrated this on the program she was watching with a chimpanzee versus the dog. A treat was hidden under one of several cups. The human just had to glance towards the correct cup and the dog would flip it over to claim its treat. With the chimp, the human could enthusiastically point to the cup with the treat but the chimp invariably looked under the wrong one.

Maybe they were. We had cats for over 16 years but I could never play hide the treat with them like I could with our dogs. They did used to go walking with me to the entertainment of the neighbors. I would walk most evenings and they would follow me for a while then hide in bushes until I came back and run out to meet me. In their later years one of them used to sometimes miss me on my return and when I got in the house and found she was not there I used to have go walking down the street calling her name, as she never hid in the same place twice.

__________________Retired in Jan, 2010 at 55, moved to England in May 2016Now it's adventure before dementia

The Bhut Jolokia is also known as the "Ghost Chili", which I learned from a post by MooreBonds here. The number after each pepper is its Scoville Heat Unit rating. For a point of reference, the rating of some common peppers is shown below.

Serrano 5K-2.3K SHU
Jalapeno 2.5K-8K SHU
Habanero 100K-350K SHU

Compared to the Habanero, which when I tried in the past I could only cut a tiny morsel out of it to use in a sauce, the 3 super hot peppers above have lethal potential. They should be sold only after the shopper signs a legal waiver form.

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